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(RNS) An 84-year-old nun was sentenced to nearly three years in prison on Tuesday (Feb. 18) for breaking into a Tennessee nuclear facility in July 2012.
Sister Megan Rice and two other anti-nuclear activists were convicted last May of breaking into a federal comp...
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Eds: A version of this story originally appeared in USA Today. It is available for use by RNS subscribers. Please use the USA Today byline.
(RNS) The family of a little girl in western Virginia has removed her from her school after administrators said she did not ap...
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PHILADELPHIA (RNS) Advance preparations for the wildly popular Pope Francis, due in Philadelphia five months from now, might rival the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000.
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WASHINGTON (RNS) Most Americans who file income tax returns won't be affected by proposed changes in how charitable contributions are deducted, but that hasn't stopped charitable groups from lobbying Congress to fight any change in deductions as part of the "fiscal cl...
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Adelle Banks, Religion News Service's production editor and national reporter, visited the Rejoice School of Ballet, a faith-based nonprofit in Nashville, Tenn., during a November multimedia boot camp with the Freedom Forum's Diversity Institute. Video by Adelle Bank...
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Mark Silk - Spiritual Politics

HHS’ latest contraception accommodation

When President Obama announced his first accommodation of religious objections to HHS' contraception mandate last month, the big unanswered question had to do with faith-based organizations that are self-insured. How could the administration require the insurance companies that (typically) manage their plans to cover contraception when the actual payments for health care are made the organizations themselves? This was sufficiently consequential for Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) to use it to rationalize her vote in favor of the Blunt Amendment.

Late Friday afternoon, HHS gave its answer: One way or another, some entity would be found to pay for the coverage (except for student plans, which would require a change in the law). Announcing the new accommodation, the Obama Administration made clear that it is proceeding on the basis of two principles: 1) free contraceptive coverage for women under the Affordable Care Act; and 2) deference to religious organizations who don't want to pay for that coverage (and only that coverage) themselves. The ball is now in the court of the religious opponents of the mandate.

The quickie reactions on Friday suggest that hard-core opponents will not be mollified. "At the end of the day, no accounting gimmick changes the fact that the mandate forces religious organizations to pay health insurance companies for coverage to their employees with drugs and services that simply violates their religious convictions," Jeanne Monahan, director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council, told RNS' David Gibson. But if the burden of payment is really shifted, as HHS proposes, that's not true. What's true is that, at the end of the day, the policy will mean that by insuring their employees, religious organizations that don't meet the Administration's criteria for churches and other strictly religious bodies will thereby enable their female employees to receive free contraceptive services.

If the Catholic bishops, for example, consider that to be intolerable cooperation with evil, then they will maintain their opposition. But then they should acknowledge that the issue is not about paying for services they oppose but wanting to make it harder for the women in their employ to obtain those services. Meanwhile, it will be harder for relative moderates in Congress like Sen. Collins to continue to cast their lot with the opponents. And if Republican majorities in both Houses continue to do so, then, as John McCain warned over the weekend, the GOP-is-anti-woman bumper sticker will only become more plausible.

Mark Silk is Professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and director of the college's Program on Public Values. He joined Trinity College after working as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He writes on news media coverage of religious subject matter.
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